Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week (5 page)

‘Phew!’ said Archie. ‘That was a close one!’

Miss Henley did not answer. Instead, she reached into the sodden remains of her bag and took out the burned corner that was all that was left of a photograph. She began
crying
again, and it was almost a minute before she had recovered enough to wipe the tears from her face with a piece of kitchen towel Cyd found for her.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the teacher. ‘But it was the only photo I had of him, you see.’

‘Only photo of who?’ asked Cyd.

‘My fiancé.’ Miss Henley let out a long sigh. ‘Gary. We met on holiday eight months ago, fell in love, and we were going to get married as soon as we got back to England. But I had to fly back the day before him, so I gave him my address and phone number. He said he would call me as soon as he was home and’ – Miss Henley gave a little sob – ‘he never did.’

‘Why not?’ asked Cyd.

‘I don’t know!’ Miss Henley lifted her arms in despair. ‘Perhaps he didn’t really love me. Perhaps he forgot. Perhaps . . . perhaps he’s dead!’

The tears were running down her face again.

‘Maybe,’ said Cyd thoughtfully, ‘we could send a message.’

‘But I don’t know where he lives!’ said Miss Henley.

‘She can’t send him a message if she doesn’t know where he lives,’ said Archie.

‘I was thinking of a message asking someone to come and rescue us,’ said Cyd. She pointed to an air vent in the wall up near the ceiling. ‘If we take the cover off that vent, write a message on a piece of paper, fold it up as a paper dart and throw it through the hole in the wall, whoever finds it can come and rescue us!’

‘You think someone would find it?’ said Miss Henley, doubtfully.

‘They might not find
one
message,’ said Cyd, ‘but look at all the paper we’ve got!’ She gestured to the piles of paper stacked on the shelves around the stockroom. ‘We can send out hundreds. Someone’s bound to notice eventually.’

‘That is brilliant!’ said Archie. ‘Come on then, let’s do it!’

Miss Henley wrote out the message in big letters on a piece of paper. It said:

We are stuck in the stockroom on the first floor of Tetley Junior School. Please tell the Head Teacher or the police and come and rescue us
.

Cyd folded it up as a paper dart and passed it to Archie who had successfully taken off the cover of the air vent, revealing a round hole. He took the dart and launched it into the world.

Miss Henley had already written the same message on another piece of paper when, even before Cyd had finished folding it and Archie could throw it out, they heard footsteps running down the corridor and into the classroom. A moment later the door had opened and two men were standing in the doorway gazing at them. One of them was Mr Gunn, the Head Teacher.

‘I don’t believe it!’ he said, staring at the foam on the floor, the broken vent and the burned handbag. ‘What happened?’

‘The door handle came off,’ Archie explained, ‘and we were trapped.’

‘I’m glad you found the note,’ said Cyd, pointing to the piece of paper the Head Teacher was holding. ‘We thought we might have to stay here all night.’

‘Well,
I
didn’t find it,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘He did.’ He pointed to the young man standing beside him, wearing a postman’s uniform. ‘He was walking down the road just outside the school when your dart landed at his feet. He brought it in to me and . . .’ He paused, looking anxiously at Miss Henley. ‘Are you all right?’

Miss Henley did not answer, and Archie could see why the Head Teacher was concerned. She had not moved or spoken since the door to the stockroom had opened. All she had done was stare, open-mouthed, at the man in the postman’s uniform.

‘Gary?’ she said, her voice no more than a whisper. ‘Is that you?’

‘Penny!’ The young man knelt down and took Miss Henley’s hands in his own. ‘I don’t believe it! Penny! Have I really found you at last?’

‘You . . . you’ve been looking for me?’ asked Miss Henley.

‘I have done nothing but search for you for the last eight months!’ said the man, and in a great sweeping motion he took Miss Henley into his arms and kissed her.

‘Please!’ said Mr Gunn. ‘Please! Not in front of the children!’

An hour later, as they were walking home, Archie and Cyd could still hardly believe what had happened. They had listened, entranced, to Gary’s story of how, eight months before, on the day he was meant to fly back to England, he had been injured while trying to rescue a kitten from the hotel balcony.

‘I was in hospital for three days,’ he said, sitting in Mr Gunn’s office with Miss Henley beside him. ‘But when they gave me my
clothes
back, the address and phone number you had given me was gone, and the only part of it I could remember was the name of the town. So I moved here, got a job as a postman and hoped that one day I’d see you in the street, or find your name on a letter.’ He held Miss Henley’s hands tightly in his own as he spoke. ‘And now I’ve found you again, I shall never let you go!’

‘It’s like something you read about in story books, isn’t it?’ said Cyd, as they walked up the road to her house. ‘The two of them are going to live happily ever after, and it’s all thanks to you, Archie! I think you should feel really pleased!’

And Archie did feel quite pleased – at least he did until he got home and his mother saw him.

‘What have you done to your coat?’ she demanded, pointing to the scorch marks caused by the fire in the stockroom. ‘And what are all those stains round the bottom of your trousers?’

‘Honestly!’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it, Archie!’

ON THURSDAY, ARCHIE’S
class had yet another new teacher.

Mrs Hemp was an elderly woman with grey hair and a hearing aid, who had in fact retired three years before, but still occasionally taught in schools when she was needed.

Mr Gunn did his best to warn to her about Archie.

‘We’re not sure
why
something odd happens to him every day,’ he said, ‘but you will need to watch out for it.’

Mrs Hemp, however, only laughed. ‘I’ve been teaching for forty years,’ she said, ‘and I’ve seen children do just about everything. Nothing odd is going to
surprise
me, I promise you!’

Mr Gunn hoped that she was right, but what happened later that day came as a surprise to both of them.

It was about halfway through the afternoon when Mrs Hemp appeared in the Head Teacher’s office, carrying a school bag. She was accompanied by a small black and white dog.

‘You’ll never believe what’s happened!’ she said.

‘If this is about Archie, then I probably won’t,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘What’s he done this time?’

Mrs Hemp pointed dramatically to the terrier at her feet. ‘He’s turned into a dog,’ she said.

‘You’re right,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘I didn’t either at first,’ said Mrs Hemp, ‘but it’s the only explanation.’ She sat herself in a chair opposite the Head Teacher and gestured to the dog to sit beside her. ‘If you want, you can ask him yourself.’